In her newly released memoir Sociopath, Patric Gagne pulls back the curtain on a life lived without remorse, empathy, or guilt—emotions most people take for granted. Diagnosed as a sociopath, Gagne offers a gripping and raw account of navigating the world with a mind wired differently from the norm.
From childhood, she felt emotionally disconnected, capable of experiencing only basic feelings like happiness and anger, while social emotions such as shame or compassion remained foreign. This led her down a path of reckless behavior—lying, stealing, and even hurting others—driven not by cruelty, but by a desperate attempt to feel something.
Her turning point came in college when a realization struck: her emotional detachment had a name. Instead of retreating into the label, Gagne dove into the field of psychology, eventually earning a doctorate and dedicating herself to researching sociopathy and its link to anxiety.
In her memoir, Gagne doesn’t ask for sympathy. Instead, she invites readers to consider that sociopaths are not all villains—they are often silently struggling to coexist in a world built around emotions they don’t possess.
Sociopath is both unsettling and enlightening, challenging the traditional view of what it means to lack a conscience, and giving a human face to a condition most only associate with crime or chaos.